Chapters:

My family has always been normal, completely and totally normal.
Absolutely nothing out of the ordinary could be said about us. My
mother had an average job, waiting tables at some local
restaurant, my father a lawyer. I was an only child and there
were no special talents or anything of interest to give me any
sort of recognition. We always lived in a three bedroom house and
every Wednesday my parents would leave me with a babysitter while
they went to bingo and dinner. Not even our looks were anything
special; all three of us had brownish blonde hair and all three
of us had hazel eyes. No pets for my entire childhood and when I
had a friend over the most we would do was watch a movie with my
parents.
It was a quiet life, full of predictability and routine. That is,
until my father died. That shook things up a bit and made our
life a little bit more….well, more. Don't get me wrong, I loved
my father. He was a good man, a good dad. But I won't deny that
somewhere deep inside of me, I was thankful when he died simply
because it meant that things weren't sticking to "the routine".
Things were getting interesting. Things were changing. My mother
got out more, she made more friends, had more fun once the
schedule was rearranged. And me? Well something even more
interesting than my father dying happened to me. Something that
for the longest time I denied ever happened.
What I tell you might sound just a tad crazy. I know it would
sound crazy to me hearing it from someone else's mouth. But bear
with me, this story is worth listening too. It'll be long though,
I have to start from the beginning. I have to start with the
first time I ever laid eyes on him.
The first time I saw him I was seven. My mom had just tucked me
in, kissed me goodnight and then turned out the light. I've never
been afraid of the dark so she closed the door without any worry.
I'm not sure how long I lay there adjusting to the dark but when
I was finally able to see I was shocked to find a man standing
over my bed. I blinked a couple times and rubbed my eyes thinking
that it wasn't real. The man was gone when I opened my eyes and
although I was a little worried I went to sleep with no troubles.
The next night I didn't see anything and I suppose even at that
young age I convinced myself he wasn't real.
Then two weeks later I saw him again, standing over my bed
staring at me. Since I had convinced myself he wasn't real, this
sighting didn't even faze me. I sat up in bed and cocked my head
to the side, looking at him.
"Hello."
He smiled, his pale skin seeming to glow in the dark at me, and
his hair falling into his eyes a bit as his head nodded slightly.
"Hi. You should really get some sleep; it's a big day
tomorrow."
"What?"
His smile fell a little bit and his seemingly black eyes looked a
little sad.
"Never mind. Just go to sleep alright?"
I blinked before I said anything and in that instant he was gone
again.
"Where'd you go" I whispered, looking around my room. I got up
and turned the light on; I was determined to find him. I looked
everywhere, in all my dresser drawers, the closet, even under the
bed. The man was nowhere to be found. I crawled back in bed and
waited for hours but he didn't appear again that night.
The next day my dad died on his way to work. The neighborhood we
lived in was frequented by gang violence, and that day a
particularly nasty fight had broken out between two rival gangs.
A lot of people died, some were gang members, and some were
innocent bystanders. My dad was hit by a stray bullet while he
was driving down the street. The bullet killed him instantly. The
car kept going down the street before crashing through the front
window of a house at the end, injuring a woman who had been
sitting on the couch inside. She probably thought that she would
be safe inside that day.
I cried, as any child would. But I couldn't stop thinking about
the man, how he had told me it would be a big day. How did he
know something was going to happen? Why had something happened
when he wasn't even supposed to be real? I was scared. Nothing
was making sense to me and there was no one I could ask, no one
who could explain it to me.
The first few weeks after the funeral I stayed awake as long as I
could, waiting. I had questions I needed to ask him. Who was he,
why was he in my room, how did he know my dad would die? My
mother was worried at the lack of sleep but he didn't show up,
and eventually I simply stopped waiting.
I didn't see him again until two years later.